The present invention relates to plastic bags with handles commonly supplied in grocery stores and more particularly relates to devices which can be fitted to existing refuse receptacles for preventing such plastic bag with handles from collapsing inside the receptacle when reused as liner.
Consumers often receive goods, such as groceries and other retail items in plastic bags with handles from stores. These plastic bags with handles come in different sizes and configuration.
Consumers often reuse plastic bags with handles accumulated from their shopping trips as liners for existing refuse receptacles but these bags have tendency to collapse inside the refuse receptacle and leave the gaps for trash to fall through and make inside surface of refuse receptacle dirty. Collapsing of bag sometimes closes the mouth of the bag which requires Consumers to reposition the bag and makes it inconvenient to reuse bags with handles as liner.
Many efforts have been made to provide devices which fit to existing refuse receptacle to prevent afore described plastic bag with handles from collapsing, though they have following limitations,                a. They do not tackle different sizes and configuration of afore described plastic bags.        b. They allow gaps between bag and refuse receptacle's wall for trash to fall through inside the refuse receptacle itself instead of plastic bag and make refuse receptacle dirty.        c. They only fit to particular shape of refuse receptacle like rectangular or circular.        d. They only fit to refuse receptacles without having a lid.By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,808 to Guhl discloses a holdfast and support system for an elastic plastic container liner, U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,740 to Courtemanche discloses a support hook for plastic bag, U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,861 to Hall discloses a holder for supporting plastic bags, U.S. Pat. No. 5,887,748 to Nguyen discloses a bag supporting system.        
Other attempts have been made to provide a Clip kind of device which has following limitations,                a. They require fastening or gluing them to refuse receptacle.        b. Fixing these devices permanently to refuse receptacle limits their flexibility to handle various sizes and configurations of plastic bags with handle.By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,925,056 to McCoig discloses an apparatus facilitating the use of a plastic grocery bag as a trash container, U.S. Pat. No. 5,419,452 to Mueller discloses a fastening device for container liners.        
In this respect, the device of the present invention substantially departs from the concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides a device primarily developed to fit the existing refuse receptacles of various shapes and sizes and prevent the plastic bag with handles of various configuration and sizes from collapsing inside refuse receptacle when plastic bag with handles reused as refuse receptacle liner.